


Make Time For Me

by bioticbootyshaker, Defira



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Not Really Character Death, Time Loop, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 22:27:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4722671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defira/pseuds/Defira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian and Cullen are, despite all the odds, quite good friends. Dorian still finds the concept of an honest friendship to be a novelty, something shiny and new, but he's not so optimistic to hope that theirs is a companionship that will last the ages. They are, after all, remarkably different.</p><p>All thoughts of tomorrow are ripped away from him when a pointless accident snatches Cullen away, leaving the Inquisition reeling from the loss of their military advisor, and Dorian broken hearted at the loss of his friend. </p><p>Determined to undo the tragedy, Dorian turns to his great secret- his research into time manipulation- and sets out to bring Cullen back, regardless of the cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pfaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=pfaerie).



> It is the most excellent [pfaerie's](http://pfaerie.tumblr.com) birthday and we all know the best birthday gift is the gift of OTP angst and fluff. So we organised both, huzzah!
> 
> Also, for anyone worried about the 'Major Character Death' warning, obviously Cullen doesn't stay dead but we did want to warn people before they got into this hellish Thedosian Groundhog Day with us.

It was not a good way to die. 

Dorian questioned whether or not dying could be considered _good_ at all; certainly he had too much he wanted to live for that he could think of death as anything but an inconvenience at best and terrifying at worst. Death was so horrifyingly final, no chance to atone for mistakes, no opportunity to live and love and experience everything the world had to offer him. If he had to accept it, he could probably be pressed to admit that dying quietly in his sleep after a long life well lived wasn’t terrible, and that if he succumbed to some terrible wasting illness he might prefer the option to end his own suffering. 

But he wasn’t fond of the topic, and he didn’t like to consider dying- a strange opinion for a necromancer to hold, and perhaps a tad naive for someone in the employ of an organisation like the Inquisition, that dealt with death on a daily basis. 

Which, all things considered, was probably why he reacted so badly when news reached them a half day’s ride from Skyhold that Commander Cullen Rutherford was dead. 

It was a stupid, asinine, pointless way to die- he had not given his life on the fields of battle, a hero and a martyr, his name to be uplifted in grief and defiance. He had not been the victim of an assassin’s blade, or thrown himself in the way of bolt aimed at the heart of an innocent. There was no secret assault against Skyhold while the Inquisitor had been away in the field, no bar room brawl that had succumbed to deadly violence. 

In the end, the Commander had died as a victim of cruel misfortune- his skull caved in when a freshly mended section of masonry gave way as he walked underneath it. The grout between the stones had not been entirely suitable for the bitterly cold temperatures of the mountains, and had never properly set. A day of blustery rain was all it had taken to weaken the structure and send the stones crashing down on top of him. 

The news reached them by way of an all but hysterical scout, mounted atop a horse foaming at the mouth for how hard he’d ridden the poor beast. They’d been away on the Ferelden coast, trying to flush out an encampment of red templars entrenched in a series of caves along the shore. It had been a cold, damp, unpleasant business, and if he ever got the scent of brine and rot out of his clothes he would be surprised; they’d had victory in the end, of course, and had returned to Skyhold in high spirits. 

How quickly the mood could change. 

Darayna was never subtle with her emotions even at the best of times, and the young qunari woman promptly burst into tears at the news, which only served to push the already frantic messenger over the edge as well. Sera, bless her heart, took it in her stride, and despite the ashen cast to her features and the bright sheen of unshed tears in her eyes, coaxed Rayn over to the edge of the road, rubbing her back soothingly and whispering to her under her breath as Rayn hugged her face to her knees and wept. Bull looked empty, if there was a word for it- like the spirit and joviality had gone from him entirely, but he still took the time to crouch down beside the stricken Inquisition scout, one meaty hand on his shoulder as he tried to calm the poor kid. 

Dorian stood in the centre of the road, waiting for the immensity of it to hit him. Cullen couldn’t be dead, Cullen was too important to be dead. He was the _Commander_ , larger than life, somehow gawkish and intimidating all at once; the Inquisition needed him, because if a man like the Commander could be struck down by sheer dumb luck, then what hope was there for the rest of them when faced with a malignant creature with an unstoppable desire for their deaths? 

Cullen was his _friend_ \- a bizarre statement, to be sure, and he couldn’t say that he’d ever had the foresight to consider calling a _templar_ his friend. He also wasn’t in such a position that he could afford to lose a friend, precious few of them that he had.

This was Cullen who had survived the horrors of Kinloch Hold- what little he’d managed to glean from him-, Cullen who had endured the madness of Kirkwall and the Gallows, Cullen who had stood to face a fledgling god and an Archdemon and declared that even in death they could be defiant. 

He hadn’t even realised at what point he’d come to relax around him, this man who should have been his anathema, a templar and a soldier and a southerner and his opposite in so many ways and instead his friend...

... and he didn’t even realise he was crying until he felt Bull’s hand on his shoulder and looked up blearily to find concern and grief and empathy written over his craggy face, and that was all it took for Dorian to break. He bawled like an infant, his face buried against Bull’s shoulder with his arms tight around him; he liked Bull well enough and he liked flirting with him, and at any other time he would probably have been smugly pleased to find himself enveloped in his arms. 

Instead, he cried as he felt his heart break, as his chest burned and constricted, like there were iron bands wrapped around his ribs, like his innards were dissolving and draining away, leaving him hollow and fragile, his body crisscrossed with a landscape of hairline fractures that would shatter the moment anyone touched him with even the slightest pressure. 

They all assumed they would die- they all knew they would be called at any moment to give their lives in defence of freedom, in defence of a better Thedas and a better tomorrow.

But not like this. 

Not Cullen. 

Dorian cried until exhaustion claimed him, wrapped safe in Bull’s arms as his head throbbed and his heart broke and he came to grips with the fact that he had lost a friend.

***

When he awoke sometime later it was dark, and the temperature had dropped remarkably; the exposed skin on his shoulder was stinging from the cold, and he winced as he reached up absently to try to rub some warmth back into it. 

He was sitting pressed against a hard, warm surface, and he was definitely moving. Stifling a groan at the stiffness he felt in his bones, he tried to straighten and blinked to clear his eyes; once his vision cleared and adjusted to the darkness, he immediately lurched back to pressing himself against the warm surface.

“Almost home, Dorian,” Bull said, now revealed to be the warm surface he was clinging desperately to. He’d awoken to find himself riding behind him, the hefty warhorse Bull rode everywhere apparently unfazed by the extra weight, but more importantly he’d woken to find himself staring down into the deep valley as they crossed the bridge into Skyhold. 

Dorian wasn’t fond of heights, and he made a point not to risk glancing down whenever it was necessary to cross into the valley; waking up and finding himself mere inches from plunging to his death if he’d squirmed in his sleep was not his favourite way of waking up. 

_Plunging to his death._

The news from hours earlier came surging back and he moaned, pressing his face hard against Bull’s back. He wanted to pretend he hadn’t remembered, he wanted to pretend it was just a bad dream- maybe he’d gotten exceedingly drunk on the way back from the Storm Coast, maybe he and Bull and Sera had talked Rayn into opening one of those terribly suspect Grey Warden vintages they’d found and he’d had terrible drunken hallucinations and the pounding in his head and the grit in his eyes was simply a hangover.

But Bull had called him Dorian, not ‘Vint. He hadn’t tried to make a joke at his expense, like he might have had Dorian woken still half sloshed. He hadn’t laughed and teased at Dorian’s moment of panic at the sight of the gorge beneath the bridge.

It wasn’t a nightmare. It was still real.

Cullen was dead. 

Skyhold was eerily silent as the rode into the courtyard; it wasn’t late by any means, and there should still have been people moving about, traders finally packing up their wagons for the evening, music and jovial shouting pouring from the open door of the Herald’s Rest... but there was nothing. 

He could see the shadowy silhouettes of soldiers on the wall, still at their posts, but none raised their hands in greeting as they crossed beneath the gate. Josephine and Leliana waited by the foot of the stairs, and there were two stable-hands ready to help them all dismount and take the horses, but that was it. No crowd to greet them, no well-wishers to welcome the Inquisitor home with rousing cheers and open arms. Nothing but silence, and the distant mournful howl of the wind as it twisted through the narrow paths between the mountains.

Skyhold was in shock far deeper than he had hoped, grief and misery hanging over the keep like a funeral shroud. 

None of them spoke as they dismounted, Dorian slithering rather gracelessly from behind Bull; the other man put a steadying hand on his arm when his feet wobbled under him, but the warmth of his touch didn’t really seem to penetrate through to the yawning emptiness within him. 

Rayn was all but limping as she crossed over to Leliana and Josephine, Sera tucked firmly under her arm and very clearly supporting her; Josephine’s face crumbled as they drew close, and after a moment the four women were wound together, arms tight around one another and the muffled sound of weeping drifting across the courtyard to where Dorian stood numbly. 

Bull’s hand was on his shoulder again, no overenthusiastic slap of affection like he would normally expect from him. Dorian glanced up at him and found his sole eye sombre, his mouth a grim line. 

“Gonna go check on the lads,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the tavern. “You should come.”

It was a clear invitation, and an obvious indication that Bull didn’t seem to think he should be left alone right now, but it was too much. Bull was going to go back to the Chargers, to his little brood of ducklings, and they would mourn together and heal together like the odd little family unit they were. Dorian wasn’t a part of that family, as much as he enjoyed their company and the rowdy, raucous evenings with them with too much bad wine and too many awfully crude and hilarious songs, he couldn’t stand to see them right now.

Or maybe it was more that he couldn’t stand for them to see _him_. 

His lips twisted in something that was probably supposed to be a smile- habit, really- but that his body couldn’t quite manage to translate. “Rather keep my own company,” he said, wincing at how raw his voice sounded. “Think I fancy an early night.”

It was a weak lie- he wasn’t going to sleep, regardless of how exhausted he was- but Bull nodded as if he believed it, even if the look in his eye said otherwise. “You know where to find us if you change your mind,” he said, his fingers squeezing gently on his shoulder. Dorian was struck once again by how- were the circumstances different- he probably would have delighted in Bull’s attentiveness, but right now it only left him feeling vaguely ashamed and entirely too vulnerable.

How could he even consider such things when a great man, his friend, was dead?

He followed Bull as if he meant to go into the Herald’s Rest, only because he wanted to steer clear of the small huddle of women still clustered on the steps; he hadn’t been able to make out any of their conversation, if any of it was coherent enough to be considered conversation in the first place, but he didn’t fancy risking being dragged into their circle of grief. He felt raw, fragile- he didn’t want to talk to anyone because he didn’t really want to be forced to process his feelings. Everything was too sharp, too ragged, and everything hurt a bit too much to consider poking at it just yet. 

The Great Hall, when he crossed the threshold, was near to deserted, an eerie sight to behold. Normally there were inhabitants moving about right into the early hours of the morning, a combination of Orlesian nobles who seemed determined to maintain the social hours of Val Royeaux and the scouts and soldiers who changed rotation at all ends of the morning and night. His footsteps echoed back to him as he shuffled wearily through, as hollow as the thud of his heart in his chest.

He should definitely turn and head towards the living quarters, the wing near to the gardens where he had claimed a room of his own; he needed to wash his face, even if the hour was too late for him to call for a proper bath (he dreaded to think about how badly the kohl around his eyes had run), and he had a good bottle or two of wine tucked away that would probably help ease him into sleep.

Instead he found his steps turning instead towards the staircase, and towards the library, the towering rotunda just as silent as the rest of the keep. Even the ravens seemed to sense the mood of the inhabitants, and the occasional sleepy croaks and ruffling of feathers he was used to hearing at this hour were non-existent. 

He didn’t quite want to admit to himself why he’d come to the library until he found himself standing in his little nook, the comfort of the chair ignored so that he could lean wearily against the stone wall and stare out into the night. 

No, not the night, but something in particular. 

He stared out the window, his eyes inevitably falling on Cullen’s tower; normally he could expect to see candlelight in the windows into the small hours of the morning, but now it lay dark and empty. He wanted to believe that Cullen had merely gone to bed early, that if he were to go back downstairs and cross the bridge to the tower and hammer loud enough on the door, that Cullen would come downstairs with a cross expression muddled by sleep, his hair a mess and his chest and feet bare. And they would laugh and jest, and Cullen would tell him it was all a mix up, that he simply had a headache, he’d knocked his head perhaps but nothing a good herbal tonic and a good night’s rest wouldn’t cure. 

And then he would flirt and Cullen would blush, and they would banter for a short while, and then life would go back to normal, where Cullen was most certainly not dead and Dorian didn’t have to deal with the crippling pain of losing another friend to the most ridiculously awful circumstances. 

Felix’s face floated into his memory again, and for a moment he closed his eyes against the tears threatening yet again. 

If only he’d had more time...

The idea took a long moment to unfurl properly in his thoughts- but once the seed was planted, it was impossible to ignore. He was exhausted, but as his brain slowly tried to move towards a plan, he felt the adrenalin begin to build in his blood. 

_There was a way he could have more time._

He’d never been completely honest with the Inquisition when he’d joined them in Haven- honestly, he hadn’t really had much time to give them a thorough run down of his academic endeavours when he’d been staggering through the gate to warn them about the impending arrival of the Venatori and the Elder One. And he’d always _meant_ to tell them about the magic Alexius had been toying with, but, well... he was already the dreaded Tevinter Magister, blood mage and spy and assassin and deviant. If he added “meddles with time” to his list of accomplishments, the frequent slurs and occasional shoves around the keep from the surviving templars would turn to violence for sure. 

Alexius had tried to use the power for evil, in the service of the Elder One, but this? This was small, a matter of a few hours at most. It was nothing- go back, pull Cullen away from the falling masonry, continue on as if nothing unusual had happened, happy ending for all. No one would have to grieve for the painfully pointless death of their beloved Commander, the Inquisition would not have to suffer through the staggering loss of their military advisor, and he would be able to keep a friend for once. 

It was just a few hours.

Surely nothing to be alarmed over... _surely._

And Cullen would be alive and hale and all would be well. 

Half a day. Twelve hours, maybe thirteen.

Maybe he had more time than he’d thought.


	2. Chapter 2

_Earlier that morning..._

Cullen winced as the sun burst out from behind the scant cloud cover, holding his hand up to shield his already aching eyes from the light that seemed determined to pierce directly through his skull. The headache wasn’t a bad one, all things considered, but that didn’t mean he wanted to encourage the blighted thing to worsen. 

“Commander?”

He blinked and looked back to the woman at his side, trying to dredge up her name as he did so. “I’m sorry, my mind’s all over the place this morning,” he said, which was essentially the truth. Just because it was the truth every single day wasn’t something she needed to know, however. “Could you repeat that?”

If she was frustrated by his inattention, she hid it well. “I was saying, Commander, that it’s all well and good to say the wounded need to be moved, but we just don’t have the space in the infirmary right now. The lady inquisitor said she’d keep an eye out for stone, but until we have the resources, we just can’t take more in.”

Sighing wearily and pinching at the bridge of his nose, as if that would stave off the headache, he said “We can’t just leave the wounded down here in the courtyard. The sun only reaches them here for maybe an hour or two, and the rest of the time it’s cold enough to keep the frost on the grass. We can’t have the mortally ill freezing to death.”

“I’m aware of that, Commander, but unless you’re happy to give up your quarters for a higher cause, we just have no room. We’ve made them as comfortable as we can, given the circumstances.”

There was a startled yell across the yard, followed half a second later by a clattering crash; they both jumped in alarm, more out of instinct than out of any real threat, and Cullen was scowling by the time he turned around and spotted the source of the disturbance- a pair of recruits trying to manhandle a crate of weapons down the stairs only to have dropped it on their toes. 

He glared at them and they noticeably wilted under his gaze, cringing despite the weight of the box still resting on their feet. “Is there a problem, soldiers?” he asked sharply, his voice whipping out at them and making them flinch. “Are we perhaps disinterested in maintaining safety standards?”

“Sir, no sir!”

“Do you perhaps not recall the safety notice issued by Ambassador Montilyet just a few days ago?”

“Sir, we-” They exchanged miserable looks. “We’ll do better, sir.”

“Perhaps you’d do better to carry those items up individually, rather than risk letting a heavy crate escape and crush an innocent on the stairs.”

The dismay on their faces would probably have been comical at any other time, but right now his head hurt and he was too irritable to find their incompetence amusing. After a moment, their meek “yes, sir” reached his ears, and they let the crate bump down to the flat of the courtyard, one of them standing guard over it while the other trudged off to fetch a crowbar from the blacksmith. 

He scrubbed wearily at his face, feeling the ache crawling up his neck to the base of his skull. He didn’t have the time to feel sorry for himself today, not with so much to do- Rayn and her party were due back later tonight, weather permitting, and even if they couldn’t make the final push until tomorrow, he had a duty to make sure the keep was in a better state than when they’d left it. 

At the moment, he wasn’t feeling optimistic. 

When he turned back, the physician had already moved away; he grit his teeth in annoyance, rather than bark out an angry command that she return to finish their conversation. Not everyone was his subordinate, and not everyone had to leap into action at his insistence- she’d said her piece and clearly decided that was that, and he’d have a word to Josephine and Leliana about it and go from there. 

But Josephine was in trade negotiations for several more hours to come, and Leliana had said she was hoping to catch up on all of her field reports before Rayn got back, so she’d be locked away for hours to come. 

Which left him with far too many odds and ends he needed to organise and not enough hours in the day to manage it- but that was nothing unusual, was it now?

With a sigh that trailed off onto a grumble, he rubbed at his eyes and turned to head towards the stairs by the little market that had sprung up on the edge of the lower courtyard; the vendors themselves had yet to appear for the morning, but given the bite in the air, he didn’t particularly blame them for dragging their feet. He couldn’t imagine there was a great deal of interest in browsing for trinkets when it was still cold enough for his breath to curl through the air before him.

He glanced around as he walked, looking to see that he was well and truly alone and unwatched, before breathing out with a little more force, watching the cloud of hot air steam in the cold morning. If anyone happened to look in his direction, they certainly couldn’t _prove_ he was having a moment of whimsy pretending he was a frost dragon- 

There was a buzzing crackle that set the hair on the back of his neck on end, and then something slammed into him at speed, propelling him forward violently towards the stairs. It could only have taken place in the space of a second, possibly two- the landscape around him blurred to streaks of colour, the stone wall surging towards him at a terrifying rate as his heart lurched around in his chest in a frenzy. 

The air was shoved out of his lungs at the impact, and even putting his hands out to stop himself, he still crunched into the wall fairly hard; it wasn’t helped at all by the weight at his back, momentum carrying it into the wall with him, pinning him between the stone and- whatever it was.

Blinking stars from his eyes and trying to dredge up the memory of how to breathe again, his fading templar senses allowed one word to float up in his mind.

_Mage._

Before he could get his breath back, a hand wrapped around his arm and he suddenly found himself turned roughly and pressed against the wall in the shaded corner beside the stairs; he opened his mouth to object to being manhandled, and another hand slammed over his lower face, trapping whatever words had been on the tip of his tongue. Panic seethed up in his throat, and he went to push back against his assailant, when a familiar scent hit his nose, closely followed by a pair of storm-grey eyes coming into focus before him. 

“Dorian?”

Or rather, it came out more like “Daw-een?” given that Dorian had his hand pressed firmly over his mouth to keep him from speaking. 

Dorian had pinned him to the stone wall, the branches of the tree and bushes effectively hiding them from the prying eyes of the rest of the courtyard. He was pressed flush against him, and his hand was _freezing_ where it touched his face; mornings in Skyhold were never something he’d call pleasant, by any means, but Dorian’s hand felt like he’d dunked it in a barrel of ice immediately before apprehending him. 

He stared at him, the adrenalin easing in his veins now that he knew he hadn’t been dragged off into the shadows by an assassin. “Dorian?” he tried again, although it still came out like _daw-een_. There was something off about Dorian’s features, and it took him a moment to realise that Dorian looked dishevelled- and wasn’t that a bizarre word to associate with the normally immaculately styled mage. There was no kohl lining his eyes, which were remarkably red and bloodshot, and his hair was so wildly askew that Cullen had to blink in disbelief at the sight of it. 

He looked haggard, like a man utterly overwrought, and the fact that he had dragged him out of sight of the rest of the courtyard by means of a fade-step certainly seemed to suggest he didn’t want to be seen by anyone else.

Dorian was staring at him like a wild man, breathing heavily as if he’d just run a vast distance, and as his eyes flickered over his face, Cullen felt peculiarly vulnerable. There was an intensity in that look that was as confusing as it was frightening- Dorian was always so careful to present himself as nothing more than effortlessly charmed and flippantly bored. This wildness, this ferocity... he didn’t want to think what might have caused it. 

Dorian’s eyes dropped down to where his hand covered Cullen’s mouth, as if suddenly aware of what he was doing, and then snapped back up to snare his gaze again. “ _Don’t_ ,” he said softly, his voice cracking on the word, “move.”

Cullen shivered, the raw sincerity and command in Dorian’s voice sending a new buzz of adrenalin through him, a response that was not entirely as innocent as it should have been. This was a side to Dorian that he had not seen before, only glimpsed in flashes on the night that he’d staggered into Haven to warn them of the oncoming army of Venatori. 

And then...

Something unpleasant settled in his belly; he reached up with his free hand and pried Dorian’s hand away from his mouth with great effort. Dorian seemed determined not to give him a single inch to move, and his eyes darkened at Cullen’s pointed attempt to push him off. The air around them crackled slightly, a not so subtle warning of the fragile nature of Dorian’s control over his powers just then.

That, more than anything, set alarm bells ringing in Cullen’s head- Dorian was one of the most self-possessed mages he had ever met, possibly even the most confident and in control mage ever. For his control to be frayed to this point... 

Dorian’s arm was still pressed into his chest, just shy of pressing into his neck, when Cullen said “What are you doing here, Dorian?” 

There was no mistaking the flare of guilt and panic in his eyes, nor the way he shifted his weight to lean against him even more. “Saving your life,” he hissed, but the suspicion was planted now and there was no ignoring it.

“You’re supposed to be on your way back from the Storm Coast,” Cullen said, his fingers closing over Dorian’s wrist. “Are the others back too?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dorian snapped, but he was having trouble holding Cullen’s gaze now.

Cullen tightened his grip on Dorian’s wrist until he saw him grit his teeth.”Dorian,” he said patiently, remarkably calm for the storm of bewilderment and suspicion seething through him, “what’s going on?”

“I already said, I’m saving your life,” he said, the words coming out like the snarl of a cornered animal. 

“How did you get back to Skyhold?”

“That doesn’t matter-”

“It _does_ matter,” Cullen said, his voice sharper now. Oh, but he didn’t want to acknowledge the hurt in him, seeing Dorian evade his questions. He didn’t want to think about why his heart thudded so painfully in his chest as the realisation sank in that Dorian was hiding something, something he was frightened to reveal to Cullen. All the weeks and months of careful friendship, all the conversations that had left him smiling to himself hours later like some terribly besotted fool- all of it felt for naught, right now. “What have you done, Dorian?”

Dorian’s eyes fluttered shut, but not before Cullen glimpsed the pain in them. “What I had to do.”

Cullen felt his temper fray, and only just bit back a snarl. “Your cryptic insistence on talking in circles does not endear me to trust you,” he snapped. “Where are the others? Where is the Inquisitor?”

“She’s- she’s coming, she’ll be here tomorrow, I promise, she-” 

“How did you get into the keep without anyone observing your approach?”

“Cullen, _please_ -”

“ _Dorian_.” He never called him Cullen- always Commander, always formal, always that little buffer of gentle teasing that kept him from getting too close. There were angry tears pricking at his own eyes, horrified at himself that he’d let the other man slide so effortlessly under his skin. Why did it _hurt_ so much to think that Dorian had deceived him? This was a far greater ache than it should be, far more than just frustration at a potential security threat. “I swear, if you’ve done _anything_ that endangers Rayn-”

“Whatever I’ve done, it’s only to protect you.”

The blurted confession stabbed into his gut, an admission of guilt and an apology both; it was all the proof he needed that something was desperately wrong. 

He pushed Dorian back against the trunk of the tree, and the movement shocked him into opening his eyes- he looked utterly miserable, and more than a little panicked. _Maker_ , what had he _done_?

“I’ll deal with you later,” he said, his words coming out in a snarl. “Right now I have to get word to the forward scouts to find the Inquisitor before anything befalls her, no thanks to you.”

And then he was gone, stalking away across the yard, leaving Dorian blinking in confusion and aching from where he’d gripped him hard enough to bruise. 

_Across the yard_. 

Dorian’s heart lurched up into his throat and he scrambled out of the bushes, stumbling slightly on a loose piece of broken masonry, and opened his mouth to call after Cullen. He had to convince him, had to win back his confidence, had to-

There was the scrape of stone against stone, and before Dorian could take another step, a small section of the arched bridge crumbled and went crashing down on top of Cullen. For a single heartbeat, a frozen, agonizing moment that felt like it lasted for eternity, Dorian could only stare.

And then he was screaming, sheer noise rather than words, and-

Dorian felt the spell fracture around him as his concentration shattered, and then he was hurtling backwards, the cold stone floor of his quarters slamming into him as his head cracked against it. Black spots swam in front of his eyes at the flash of pain from the back of his skull, but he didn’t have time to acknowledge it; he rolled to his side and lunged for the chamberpot, only just getting it under him before he lost the contents of his stomach, bile burning at his mouth as he choked and heaved, tears streaming from his eyes. 

When his stomach finally settled, empty and cramping, he slithered back onto the stone, shivering as he lay with his arms wrapped around himself. The cold of the rock beneath his head felt _wonderful_ against his fevered brow, but the rest of him was gripped in a chill unlike anything he’d ever endured. Even the few miserable weeks he’d spent camping in the hills above Redcliffe hadn’t been this bad, when the cold and the damp had sunk into his clothes and his bones and refused to leave him be. 

He closed his eyes, his cheeks sticky with tears. “You fucking idiot,” he rasped, the sound of his voice enough to shake off any lingering desperation that this might still just be a colossally bad dream. He’d had a run in once in his youth with a despair demon, drawn by the decadent offering of teenage frustration coupled with his near-suicidal depression; that had been a monstrous evening before he’d managed to crawl out of the demon’s grasp, but this?

This hurt more because it was _real_. 

Without an exact time frame to work with, he’d taken the best guess as to when to return and save Cullen. When he’d stepped disoriented into his room, his head spinning as his body adjusted to the lurching tug of stepping across time and space, he’d panicked when he’d seen the sunlight streaming through the window. That panic had skyrocketed when he’d reached the courtyard and spotted Cullen about to walk under the bridge that spanned from the library tower to his office, and he’d thrown all caution to the wind and hurtled towards him, thinking only of getting him to safety...

He hadn’t stopped to consider that his appearance might be treated as suspicious, the far too charming Tevinter mage appearing out of thin air with no sign of his travelling companions. He’d grown complacent, and comfortable- he’d gotten used to the idea that people liked and accepted him, and he hadn’t stopped to think about how desperately out of place his reappearance would seem to the casual observer. 

He’d assumed his appearance and intervention would be enough to save Cullen.

Never in a million years had he even considered the possibility that he might have been _responsible_ for Cullen’s death. 

He felt hollow, emptied out, and it took him some time to realise he was crying again; he did not have the strength for sobbing, so he just lay on the floor, shivering and hiccuping as the tears dribbled down his cheek and pooling on the stone beneath him. 

The image of Cullen’s broken body tried to flit back into his head and he ruthlessly suppressed it; it wasn’t like he wasn’t familiar with the gore and brutality of death, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been gruesomely involved in the deaths of others before.

“Maker forgive me,” he rasped into the silence of his room, his throat raw from screaming. 

After a time- it could have been mere minutes, or it could have been decades for all he knew- he felt the crying wind to a stop, and a short time after that he winced and crawled back onto his hands and knees. _Everything_ ached, his joints stiff and his muscles burning; he did his best to ignore the pain, stumbling to his feet and bracing himself against the wall for a moment as the room spun around him.

He’d been in terrible situations before, and he’d survived them. He’d fought and he’d triumphed, because he was utterly remarkable. He repeated that mantra to himself as he did his best to wash his face, rinsing the last traces of bile from his mouth and slicking back his hair from his face. After a moment’s hesitation, he sat down at his dresser and quickly reapplied his makeup, wincing at how unavoidably red his eyes were. At least he didn’t look so flushed and blotchy now, and he looked partially in control again. 

Looking like he was in control of everything was half the battle, after all. 

There was an open bottle of red wine on his bedside, and he didn’t bother pouring a glass for himself- he simply took a swig straight from the bottle, grimacing at the taste. Orlesian reds were too tart for his preferences, but at least it was better than having nothing to drink.

Taking a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders. He was Dorian fucking Pavus, altus extraordinaire, most handsome man in Skyhold, and clever enough to step through time itself. He would not be thwarted by something as inconvenient as death. 

He was going to save Cullen. That was simply a fact.

He turned back to his workbench and drew on his mana for a second attempt.


	3. Chapter 3

The Fade was a marvel of untapped potential- that was undisputed fact, as far as Dorian was concerned. That very few schools seemed to be interested in exploring that untapped potential was nothing short of a crime. Oh, some effort was made, inevitably, but so many scholars tended to shy away from poking too hard at the topic, preferring theoretical studies to practical; it was the touch of mages in the Fade that had corrupted the world, after all, so as much as it went against the nature of a Tevinter to walk away from the promise of power and a challenge, practical studies of the Fade were all but non-existent. 

It had frustrated Dorian no end, that they would willingly turn their backs on the pursuit of knowledge out of fear of repeating the past. So when Alexius had been willing to humour him, seeing past the aggression and flippancy he wore like a mask to the eager student beneath, he’d jumped at the chance to further his experiments. 

And then Alexius had taken his research and given it over in service to Corypheus. Yet another reason why he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about his involvement with time magic.

The Fade existed in all places at once, and it was not unusual to find aspects of the Fade reflecting environments hundreds of leagues away, or more importantly, hundreds of years away. Not only did it exist in all places at once, it also existed in all _times_ at once- a principle that he liked to demonstrate by drawing upon the phenomenon of dreaming. 

A dreamer could find themselves lost in a grand operatic drama, caught up in the flurries and fits of the Fade and the demons therein, and convinced that days or even weeks had passed them by- only to wake up and find that they had just been indulging in a brief afternoon nap, and scarcely an hour had gone by. Time existed in the Fade, of course, but not in the same sense that it existed in the mortal realm; it was as malleable and shapeable as the realm itself, bound to the whims of mages and dreamers and demons alike. 

A clever mage could use that to their advantage. 

It was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, and even with the vast resources of Alexius’ favour and fortune, it had taken them years to make any real progress. 

The problem lay in the fact that one could not physically step foot in the Fade to take advantage of the peculiar progression (or lack thereof) of time, so a clever mage looking to take advantage had need of a way to circumvent that little difficulty. The answer, after much research and rumination and sleepless nights spent bent over tables covered in complex mathematical calculations, was deceptively simple in theory and unsurprisingly complicated in practice- one had to weaken the Veil sufficiently, as one would for any summoning of spirits, and then one had to reach through the rift to create a secondary fault line as close to the original rift as possible. Opening it from inside the Fade gave them the opportunity to open it to a specific time of their choosing, given enough power and concentration. 

Felix had rather dryly described it as trained mabari jumping through multiple hoops, which had resulted in Dorian trying to knock his chair out from under him. 

Open a rift. Anchor it to the current time and location. Reach through to the maelstrom of possibility that was the Fade. Open a second rift- anchored to a _new_ time. Push them as close together as possible, so that it was simply a matter of stepping through like one stepped through a door. 

Simple, really. 

_Well_. Simple enough when one had access to lyrium tonics to supplement one’s own mana pool, and a half dozen other powerful mages on hand to help structure and stabilize both fissures. Attempting it solo, when he’d already exhausted himself on the first attempt? 

He’d never shied away from a challenge before now.

Surprisingly, his feet were not the most unsteady part of him. His head swam, his thoughts adrift and untethered, and when Dorian stood in the cool darkness of his room, he could see grey shapes at the edges of his vision.

None of that mattered. What mattered was the spell; what mattered was saving _Cullen_. Dorian ignored the fluttering hollowness in his chest and the dizziness in his head. He focused as he pushed his fingers out against the air, concentrating as best he could on the energy that swirled around him and sang through his blood. Ripples appeared in the air, widening and spreading as though a stone had been skipped across a pond's surface.

He could hear the hoarse rattle of his own breathing, and something hot moved down his forehead and ran stinging into his eye. _Blood_ , he thought, absently, not even attempting to clear it away. He didn’t have time for a headache. Dorian ignored everything and spread the ripples wider, until they opened to reveal a mass of swirling green energy. Beyond the rift, he could see the dimmest and blurriest of scenes- a place glimpsed through the film of filthy water, perhaps.

Gritting his teeth, and his stinging, burning eye screwed shut, Dorian reached through the rift and began building the anchor that would tether him to the other side. His body shook with the effort, his bones and brain thrumming; he could literally feel his reserves of power being siphoned away by the immensity of the conjuration, sucking him dry in the most painfully unpleasant way possible. When he swallowed, he could taste a strange electricity on his tongue, a coppery taste that made his stomach lurch.

But nothing mattered but the spell.

_Nothing mattered but saving Cullen._

He built an image of him in his mind: not as he had seen him last, frightened and frantic and crushed beneath stone, but as he had seen him during their march to Skyhold, during their chess games and all of their many talks and days spent together. His smile, his painfully goofy laugh, the little furrow on the bridge of his nose when he was concentrating far too hard. The awkward way that he rubbed at his neck- the most obvious tell in existence- and the way he stood firm and unyielding in the face of the overwhelming odds they faced. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the little nicked scars on the backs of his fingers from two decades of wielding a sword. Every tiny little detail he could recall, everything little quirk that made up his memories of him.

Cullen became his anchor, even more substantial than the other side of the rift.

Dorian pushed harder, focused on nothing more than stepping through and keeping the spell intact.

_Like water_ , he thought. _Like sinking into water. Like sinking into water and coming up again. Breathe. Slow. Steady. Like water. Like water._

His eyes were closed, but he could feel the snap of the magic as it built around him and moved over him. The feeling was indescribable; almost sensual, but... _cold_ and oddly unpleasant. Dorian took in a deep, shuddering breath, and the eye that wasn't crusted shut opened-

The room was bright with sunshine.

Dorian laughed shakily, the sound bordering on hysterical, and staggered across the room towards the door.

He was woozy, his breathing ragged and whistling and wheezing through his chest. He felt... hollowed out, bones as fragile and brittle as glass. His eyelid was sticky and tacky with blood, crusting shut as he stumbled out of his rooms and lumbered along the promenade towards Cullen’s tower.

There was no time to delay. He had to get to Cullen, he had to save him, had to-

Dorian’s knees gave out, and nearby someone screamed, and as the ground rushed up to meet him, the only thing he could think was:

_Shit._

~

Cullen winced as the sun burst out from behind the scant cloud cover, holding his hand up to shield his already aching eyes from the light that seemed determined to pierce directly through his skull. The headache wasn’t a bad one, all things considered, but that didn’t mean he wanted to encourage the blighted thing to worsen.

“Commander?”

He blinked and looked back to the woman at his side, trying to dredge up her name as he did so. “I’m sorry, my mind’s all over the place this morning,” he said, which was essentially the truth. Just because it was the truth every single day wasn’t something she needed to know, however. “Could you repeat that?”

If she was frustrated by his inattention, she hid it well. “I was saying, Commander, that it’s all well and good to-”

A scream cut through the early morning air, and Cullen’s sword was drawn before he even had to think of it. It was not a shout of alarm or greeting, as he might expect from the guards on the wall drawing attention to anyone approaching, but an honest to goodness scream of panic.

It had come from higher up in the Keep, one of the higher levels, and he barrelled towards the stairs, shoving past two young soldiers doing a wretched job of hauling a crate of weapons down to the lower courtyard. He heard one of them shout in dismay and a loud clatter, but he didn’t have time to look back to see that they were alright- after the first scream, there had come a few shouts of surprise and alarm, and if he’d been inclined to think it was just another of Sera’s pranks finally triggering after going unnoticed for weeks, hearing the new cries of dismay wiped away any doubts.

Something had gone wrong, and it was far more than just a bucket of water on the head of an unsuspecting servant.

He charged into the main hall, eyes falling to the crowd gathered around the door leading out to the garden court, all shoving and jostling to get a better view- but of what?

His mind ran riot with possibilities- an assassin had struck, a mage had been taken by a demon, darkspawn had tunnelled up through the mountain and burst out through the cobblestones, Corypheus was here... each scenario more fantastical and ridiculous as he fought to keep a lid on his own panic.

“Stand aside,” he called loudly, sheathing his sword and shoving with a little more force than was necessary as he elbowed his way through the nobles gasping and tittering from behind silken gloved hands and delicate lace fans. He gritted his teeth in annoyance, trying not to take pleasure in finally having an excuse to not have to coddle them. “I say there, stand aside!”

He shouldered his way right to the front, to the little alcove where the door sat wedged open, the morning sunlight far more cheerful up at this height than it had been in the lower courtyard. Varric stood beside the door, his face grim and bewildered, and Cullen did not take that to be a good sign. With all that the dwarf had lived through over the last decade, for him to seem perturbed did not bode well.

“You’re not gonna like it, Curly,” he said warningly, arms crossed over his chest almost defensively.

Cullen frowned at him, but pushed past onto the paved promenade that circled the garden-

And stopped, blinking in utter shock.

_Dorian_ lay sprawled across the stone, a smear of blood on his forehead- thicker near to the hairline, probably an injury hiding in those thick locks- and utterly dead to the world, by the look of things. For a moment Cullen’s heart surged into his throat in a panic, because he truly _looked_ dead, but Josephine was there with his head on her lap, apparently unconcerned by the blood now staining her fine silks; the distraught look on her face was awkwardly reassuring that things were perhaps not as terrible as they seemed.

_Dorian_. Maker, what had _happened_?

Leliana crouched beside Josephine, her fingers carefully probing over Dorian’s unmoving body- for injuries? For clues?- and Vivienne knelt demurely next to her, her head bowed in concentration as she held a faintly glowing hand over Dorian’s chest.

Cullen took all of this in between one second and the next, between one heartbeat of panic and the next of bewilderment, before he blurted out “But Dorian is on the Storm Coast.”

The three women all looked up at him at once, their expressions ranging from distressed to annoyed at him for stating the painfully obvious.

“Perhaps you would like to explain his mistake, once he comes to, Commander,” Leliana said smoothly, looking for all intents and purposes like she was unaffected by this bizarre turn of events. There were slight crinkles at the edge of her eyes though, and he could practically hear her brain turning over rapidly trying to break down this peculiarity.

He bit back the angry retort that bubbled up on his tongue, and clenched his hand on the pommel of his sword instead, crouching down on Dorian’s other side. He looked remarkably sallow, his beautiful brown complexion almost grey in the morning sunlight, and he swallowed down the dismay it roused in him. “What happened? Was he struck?”

“We don’t know,” Josephine said miserably, her hands gently balanced on either side of his head for support. “One of the Sisters was on her way to the chapel, and he came staggering blindly from his room, already injured.”

“There was no sign of forced entry, and no time for anyone else to have escaped after attacking him,” Leliana said.

“But you have-”

“I have people combing the grounds, none the less,” she finished. “I think, perhaps, that you might have the most success in speaking to him, Commander.”

Cullen frowned. “Why would-”

“Because the only intelligent word that anyone heard him say before he passed out was your name,” Leliana said calmly, her blue eyes steely as she watched him for a reaction.

He blinked, the words settling over him. “I... I beg your pardon?”

“It’s true, messere,” came a distraught female voice, and he turned to see a woman in Chantry vestments- obviously the unfortunate Sister that Josephine had mentioned- wringing her hands anxiously, her expression miserable. “I couldn’t make out much more of what he said, but it were definitely your name he said. _Cullen_ , he said, and then he went down.” 

The eyes of the crowd burned on his skin, and Cullen felt himself flush under the bombardment of attention. He scowled, clearing his throat. “I have no idea why that would be the case,” he said, his voice cracking embarrassingly. “I’m as much in the dark as you are about what’s going on.”

“There is a remarkable amount of residual magic clinging to him,” Vivienne said, settling back on her calves as she brushed her hands together, as if dusting off the healing magic she’d used. She levelled a look at him. “You can feel it, no doubt.”

He could. It prickled over his skin, ebbing slowly, and for even his muted skills to pick up on the sense of it meant that it had to be enormous in scope. 

She was watching his face, and her eyes betrayed nothing at his grimace. “He needs to go to the infirmary,” she said. “I’ve done what I can, but if he has a concussion as I suspect, he will be in need of supervision until he recovers.”

“I can take him.” The words were out of his mouth before he could help himself. “I’ll carry him.”

He was not as light as Cullen had expected- mages, in his experience, were soft and delicate creatures, from a life spent idle in the confines of a tower. Dorian was firm and lean, more muscle lurking beneath his leathers than Cullen would have suspected. It made him wonder what his skin would feel like beneath his fingers, whether it would be soft like warm satin or whether it would be smooth and firm and unrelenting. He blushed again at the abrupt turn of his thoughts, and was glad at least that he could excuse the flush to his cheeks as merely exertional from the effort of carrying him.

Dorian was limp as a ragdoll in his arms, his head lolling against his chest; his hair tickled at Cullen’s chin, and he gritted his teeth. _Maker, Rutherford, what is wrong with you today?_

He shut down that thought before it had barely even formed, because he didn’t really fancy another round of navel-gazing right now; he cradled Dorian carefully in his arms as he navigated the crowd, snapping and snarling at any who pushed too close to see the spectacle. Gliding as smoothly down the stairs to the infirmary as smoothly as he could, so as not to jostle him, he nonetheless froze for a moment when Dorian let out a noise of pained distress, and his arms tightened around him; when he settled again, his shallow breath hot against his neck, Cullen scowled at himself for the sliver of heat the sensation roused in him. Whatever bizarre phenomenon Dorian had gotten himself involved in, ogling his figure while he lay unconscious was hardly an appropriate reaction. 

Maker, what had Dorian _done_?


	4. Chapter 4

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so exhausted. 

He came back to himself in bits and pieces, the grey nothing swallowing him whole every time he began to string his thoughts together in some semblance of waking. He remembered warmth, and hands on him, then nothing. He was aware of voices, some louder than others; he couldn’t really make out the words, however. 

Dull, sluggish shapes and muted sounds that could have been people talking underwater, and then he’d slip away again. 

Those small, snatched moments of lucidity, he knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on the _what_ exactly; and he was tired, so very tired, as if he’d run from Tevinter to Skyhold without stopping to rest. _Drained_ , that was the word that kept floating into his consciousness, hollow and emptied out. 

But he couldn’t concentrate for long enough to process why that was such a terrible thing, beyond this immense exhaustion.

When he finally woke, there was no mistaking the sensation- every muscle seemed to sing in agony at once, and he came awake with a soft gasp, eyes fluttering open to an unadorned wooden roof above his head, candlelight flickering warmly in the softening afternoon light.

The first thing he was able to concentrate on with any sort of clarity was that the damned blood was gone from his vision, his head still aching fiercely but his face clean and presumably freshly washed. The second thing, after that small blessing was appreciated, was that Cullen was sitting at his bedside, staring off into the distance with a vacant look in his eyes, apparently lost in thought.

Seeing him... Dorian felt a surge of emotion he didn’t have a name for; tears pricked hotly at his eyes, and he blinked them back. Maker, he was beautiful. Beautiful and whole and _alive_ \- judging by the quality of the light sending long, golden beams across the floor from the window, it was late afternoon. Dorian’s terrible gambit had paid off, and Cullen was safe. 

_Safe._

He wanted to laugh deliriously, but he did not have the energy for it; instead he smiled, feeling the shape of it on his lips and knowing it sat crooked and shone brighter than any smile he’d ever worn had. He swallowed dryly, feeling his chest constrict as he did so.

The pain was... bearable. Terrible, even after the healers had tended to him, but he could at least manage to reach out and touch Cullen’s knuckles; a brief touch, like a ghost, there and gone.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, his voice rather more raspy than husky, like he would have preferred. There was emotion in his throat, choking him, and the tears he had managed to blink back earlier brimmed once more, this time spilling down his cheeks. “Cullen.”

The faint brush of fingers against his own knocked Cullen from his melancholy brooding, and he jerked in his chair, startled, as his gaze flew up to make eye contact with a pair of desperately missed storm grey eyes. His heart flip-flopped in his chest at the sight of the tears on his face (Maker, he didn’t even want to think about what could reduce Dorian to tears), and he swallowed down the immediate need to soothe his distress, setting a more taciturn expression on his face. 

Which of course was ruined the moment Dorian called him by name, instead of his title. 

He made an awkward noise of dismay, his hand fluttering halfway between them before settling back on the blankets, clenched painfully tight into a fist. “Don’t- don’t cry,” he said gruffly, his chest burning tight with something he didn’t feel comfortable analyzing too closely. “You- are you in pain? I can fetch the healer-”

“ _No_ ,” Dorian said quickly, panic flashing in his eyes for a moment before vanishing just as quickly; if Cullen hadn’t been watching him so quickly he probably would have missed it. “No, please, don’t go.”

Dorian picked up the far corner of the blanket and made a show of dabbing at his eyes. “See? I’m fine, all’s well.” He laughed awkwardly. “It’s good to see you, Cullen.”

And there was his name again, unusual enough once but twice in as many minutes? It had been hours of impatient, unhappy waiting, and Cullen hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave Dorian’s side. There was not a great deal he could do at the moment but wait, after all- wait for Leliana’s people to search the castle, wait for word to arrive back by way of their fastest carrier birds asking after the safety of the rest of the Inquisitor’s party, wait for Dorian to wake up and give them an explanation as to why he was dozens of leagues away from where he was supposed to be, and why he’d appeared as if by magic.

He could feel a blush burning his cheeks, annoyed at himself for how easily his heart leapt at the sound of his voice on Dorian’s tongue, and he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Dorian,” he said, forcing some sort of stern disinterest into his voice. “I would like to say likewise, but I’m afraid you’ve all left us rather alarmed and confused.”

Dorian blinked at him, as if in confusion, and then that flare of guilt appeared again, and Cullen felt his heart sink. 

“I can’t imagine why,” Dorian said, a bit too quickly, reaching up to wipe at his eyes again. Stupid, foolish, impatient _arse_ \- if only he’d stopped to catch himself, if only he hadn’t gone barrelling onwards with no regard for how to explain himself _again_ , and no concern for his own health. He hadn’t even considered that the blow to his head might have been more serious than he’d assumed, and now again, his haste had made things a thousand times more difficult than they needed to be. 

At least this time, Cullen didn’t seem so panicked or alarmed- or distrustful, the worst thing he had ever seen on the Commander's face.

_Apart from a rock-_

His chest clenched painfully and for a moment the memory threatened to surge up again; his fingers were twisted so tight in the blanket that it was a wonder he hadn’t shredded it. For a terrible moment he was breathless, hollow, and then he was sucking in another lungful of air, gulping it down as the room swam around him.

At least Cullen was in one piece, thank the Maker. Wary of him, and suspicious, but not terribly so.

Now there was only the teensy problem of explaining how he had come stumbling from his room at Skyhold, bleeding all over the upholstery and ruining some poor clergywoman’s otherwise perfectly ordinary day. How was he _supposed_ to explain how he had made his way there when he was _supposed_ to be on the Storm Coast with Rayn and the rest of her merry band of misfits?

 _Brilliant, Pavus,_ he thought derisively. _Your two greatest achievements in life will be mastering time magic and figuring out how to charm your way out of the mess you’ve made using it. Well done, messere._

He sighed, a little dramatically, and turned his eyes towards the ceiling. His face still felt too hot, flushed and sticky from his tears, and if he’d been in better shape he might have kicked himself. “I certainly didn’t mean to do that,” Dorian continued finally, feigning distress. Well, he told himself he was faking it- easier on his pride that way. “Are you saying you’re not happy to see me, Commander? You’re wounding my fragile little heart.”

Cullen huffed out a breath that didn’t seem to know whether it wanted to be a sigh of frustration or a quiet laugh at Dorian’s unfailing penchant for drama. “Dorian,” he began, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, “as comforting as it is to see you jesting, please, I’m begging you- please just be serious with me, just this once. I don’t think you quite realise the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in here.”

He drummed his fingers on the thick leather of his wrist guards, nervous energy refusing to let him settle. “Dorian, what are you doing here? Where did you come from? My personal opinion on your sudden appearance has no bearing on what happens to you, as well you should know- regardless of how I feel, your actions stand on their own.”

 _Regardless of how I feel_ \- well what the bloody void did that mean? Dorian’s stomach churned unhappily, a moment of delight quickly quashed by seething doubt, and he turned his head away again lest Cullen the turmoil in his expression.

Maker’s breath, why did he have to make things so bloody complicated? With all of his damnable questions of why, and how, and what, and when; he was being so _damned_ sensible and level-headed and honestly, how dare he, it was seriously giving Dorian a headache.

 _Just pretend to fall back asleep_ , a petty little voice whispered at the back of his mind .

But if he did that, Cullen might grow tired of waiting and leave his side, and if he did _that_... Dorian wasn’t sure what might happen. No doubt the threat of him being crushed by broken masonry had passed, given the late hour of the day, but there was no telling if his unstable magic had unsettled the continuum enough to cause instability all around him.

For that matter, when he’d fallen unconscious, why hadn’t the spell rebounded on him like the previous attempt? The moment he’d lost his concentration and the bridge between the two timelines had collapsed, he’d gone ricocheting back to his starting position. He’d certainly not been concentrating while he’d been dead to the world for the last few hours, so what had changed?

The ominous threat that something had gone very wrong did nothing to settle his upset stomach. 

“Dorian? Are you sure you don’t need me to fetch the physician?”

Or perhaps he’d succeeded. Perhaps all was well, and he’d saved Cullen’s life as he’d so desperately sought to do. 

“Dorian?”

Perhaps he just liked having Cullen with him.

He took a shaky breath and tried to glance back towards him; no, that was no good, his earnest golden eyes were fixed on him, and he couldn’t cope with the intensity of such a look. “I came back,” he said, quietly. It wasn’t precisely a lie, at least, unless Cullen chose to question _where_ he had come back from. “There was... unfinished business to take care of.”

Dorian wouldn’t quite meet his gaze, and Cullen felt his frustration growing at his evasive answers. “And how did you return without alerting anyone in the castle to your presence?” he asked, his tone beginning to edge on snappish. “When precisely did you return, and injured no less? Dorian, you are an intelligent man, one of the greatest men I know- surely you must understand that your miraculous appearance is highly suspicious even to those of us who trust you?”

His ambiguity sat unpleasantly in Cullen’s chest already, the ache in him miserable and disappointed. “If you are in need of more rest, then so be it, but I will have a templar stationed by your bedside at all times. There is far too much at stake for us to risk... well, everything.”

He climbed to his feet. “I’ll send Ser Barris down to sit by you for the first few hours- you get along well enough, yes?” The last thing he needed was for a high-strung templar to get jumpy about being in close proximity to a Tevinter mage who had appeared in the Keep under suspicious circumstances. Delrin, at least, he could trust to be sensible. 

Dorian made a noise of distress at the announcement. True, Ser Barris was a good man (he was kind, gentle, and not hard on the eyes) but he was not the man that he had reversed time to protect. As Cullen stood, Dorian’s hand snapped out and grabbed at his wrist, fingers closing around his arm desperately. He knew that his eyes were wild and frantic, and that Cullen might not react well to being grabbed by a man who had appeared out of thin air, but-

“ _No!_ ” Dorian said, his voice cracking on the edge of hysteria. “Don’t leave, please.” 

Dorian’s fingers were tight around his wrist, almost desperately so, and Cullen paused, looking down at him. He wasn’t Leliana, with her obsessively detailed observations of body language, nor was he Josephine, able to read the mood and the intentions of a room in moments, but... he didn’t really have to be either to know that something was terribly wrong, and that Dorian was being almost violently evasive.

Dorian was never open with his emotions, not like this- the mask was gone, with only a weak attempt at the droll humour he wielded so effortlessly the rest of the time. If he didn’t know any better he’d go so far as to say that Dorian was vulnerable, but that was a fool notion because he’d never met anyone more careful with his boundaries than the Tevinter mage. He rebuffed all gentle queries with the same flippant laughter and dry wit, batting away concerns as if they were moths fluttering about his face. He had stood toe to toe with him in the Haven Chantry and called him out, dared to declare that he thought remarkably like a blood mage, and he was not afraid of standing by his convictions and laughing while he did so.

This was not that Dorian.

As he watched, he saw Dorian visibly struggle to get his expression back under control, swallowing audibly. He tried to inject some of his usual levity into the moment, to summon a smile and turn the moment into some kind of joke, but whatever smile he managed broke apart when he looked up into Cullen’s eyes. “Please don’t go,” he whispered finally.

He made sure to stay perfectly still, not wanting to panic him; he did not try to prise Dorian’s hand from his wrist, his fingers digging in so tight that he could feel them pressing against bone. “Dorian,” he said slowly, quiet but stern, “I need you to be honest with me. I need you to understand how this will look to everyone else, when we are at war with the Venatori, when we have already fought an army of mages- you cannot just refuse to answer and assume that it will suffice. Even if it’s all just a misunderstanding, if you can find a breach in our security, then it stands to reason that others might find it too. I _need_ to know.”

 _You have to know_ , the petty little voice whispered again from the back of his mind. _You have to know that no one trusts you. Tevinter. Snake. Wolf. Dangerous._

_You have to know that no one trusts you, not even him._

That was childishly unfair, and he knew it; it was the same old anxieties clawing up within him, mocking and relentless. Why should _anyone_ here in Skyhold trust him? Why should Cullen? He was an unknown, a mage from a land where mages ruled and where tales of excess and blood magic and carnal, forbidden, dark things were common.

He had appeared out of thin air, bleeding and dazed and tight-lipped on what had brought him here or how he had arrived without anyone the wiser.

The truth was dangerous, but what choice did he really have?

“I’ll tell you anything you wish to know,” Dorian said hoarsely, swallowing as he forced his fingers to open around Cullen’s wrist and free him. “As long as you stay.”

Cullen sighed, feeling the headache still beating at the back of his skull. “Alright,” he said after a moment, rubbing at his temple, “give me a minute.”

He went to the door and gestured for one of the infirmary staff to fetch him some parchment, leaning against the doorframe to scribble out a quick note to Josephine. 

_He’s awake, and skittish. Did L find anything?_

He blew roughly on the ink to hasten the drying process, then folded it and handed it off to a waiting runner with instructions to wait for a response. 

Turning back towards Dorian’s room, he spotted a ewer of water sitting on a side table, a tray of tin cups sitting beside it; the ewer was apparently enchanted for frost, if the condensation on the outside was any indication, and he picked it up, snaring two cups in his other hand, before heading back to Dorian’s bedside. Dorian didn’t say anything at his return, fidgeting in silence as he poured out a drink for both of them, pointedly setting it easily within reach but not handing to him outright.

Settling back into the chair beside the bed, cradling his own cup between both hands, he fixed Dorian with a pointed look. “I’m listening,” he said firmly.

There was very little friendship in the air between them. Cool suspicion filled the gaps instead, and the thought of that made Dorian miserable. He’d been through the damned void and back to get here, to keep Cullen safe and alive- he had hurt himself, very badly in fact, nearly killed himself in his haste and stupidity, and Cullen sat there stern and firm and unyielding.

In saving him, had he damaged their friendship irreparably?

 _But he’s alive_ , a more hopeful voice whispered. _He’s alive. That’s all that matters._

Despite the brittleness in his bones and the weakness in his muscles and the pain that screamed through him, Dorian moved himself into a sitting position. Cullen reached out to steady him, his hand sliding down from his shoulder to rest on his arm almost affectionately, but his touch was far warmer and softer than his eyes were when Dorian finally looked up at him.

He’d promised the truth, and that was what he gave Cullen. He told him everything: his death, the grief he had felt, the magic he had used to arrive there and save him from his fate. He kept his first attempt to save him to himself, not wanting to speak of the traumatic scene he had witnessed, but everything else was laid bare.

“You died,” Dorian finished, and he knew his heart was in his words but he couldn’t hold it back even if he’d wanted to. “And, sentimental fool that I am, I resolved to come back and save you.”

When he finally risked looking up, looking at _Cullen_ , the small fluttering hope in his chest shrivelled and died at the expression on his face.

Cullen stared at him; his stomach had slowly sunk in dismay as the tale had grown longer and more elaborate. When Dorian finally, _finally_ finished, he stared for a few heartbeats more, swallowing down the worst retorts that sprang to mind. 

“Dorian,” he said slowly, “I was a templar for over fifteen years, and for all that you laugh about we of the uneducated backwater mud-pit not being able to read or write or process logic, I am actually very well versed in the principles of magic.”

He felt disappointed more than anything, _hurt_ \- he’d thought that he and Dorian were friends, he’d thought that they had some kind of rapport, built up slowly over the preceding months. Every chess game, every meal shared, every moment of laughter and jesting and yes, flirtation- did none of it mean anything? To have Dorian lie to him so boldly, straight to his face...

Maker it _hurt_.

“The Fundamental Laws of Magic state that time magic is an impossibility,” he said brusquely, climbing jerkily to his feet. “So forgive me, while I find your story-telling admirable, I am more than a little frustrated at your insistence at hiding your true motives.” 

He turned sharply on his heel and made for the door. “I’ll have Ser Barris sit in with you for the remainder of the afternoon while I organise a rotational guard for the coming days.”

“ _No!_ ”

The shout whipped past him, and in the main room of the infirmary he saw two of the nurses turn and look uneasily towards the door. Cullen gritted his teeth and turned back to the bed, where Dorian was leaning forward with a hand outstretched, panic on his face. “I beg your pardon?” 

He’d kept his word and told the truth and Cullen didn’t believe him.

To say that he was hurt was an understatement. He was utterly _crushed_ , devastated, his heart razed by Cullen's distrust and disbelief. Yes, it was a wild tale- Dorian had no delusions that most rational people would never believe such a story- but the Inquisition had already seen the long reach of the Venatori, and the lengths to which Corypheus was willing to go to fight them. How _dare_ he bring up the Fundamental Laws of Magic, so pompous and sure of himself, as if he hadn’t already seen a thousand year old magister capable of commanding a blight dragon come knocking on Haven’s front gate only a few short months ago. 

This entire _war_ seemed determined to throw the principles of magical logic right out the window, empirical evidence be damned- Maker’s breath, Rayn had a damned flux embedded in her flesh that could tear open the Fade at her whims, and for Cullen to be so blighted _obtuse_ and ignorant of the truth-

For Cullen to _not trust him..._

“No!” Dorian shouted again, panic burning up in his throat like bile. “You asked for the fucking truth and I gave it to you!” He all but fell out of the bed and staggered across the infirmary, dangerously dizzy but too incensed to care. Tears choked him, and the grief he felt at losing Cullen’s trust was second only to the certainty that when he was gone from him, he might very well die. His legs were more rubber than muscle and bone, and Dorian collapsed to his hands and knees, the world swimming again in white and grey.

“ _Please,_ ” Dorian wanted to shout, but his voice was as dim as his vision. “Please, _don’t go._ ”

Standing in the doorway, watching his friend succumb to blind hysteria, Cullen felt something in him give way. 

Against his better judgement, he crossed back to where Dorian had collapsed on the floor behind him and sank down before him, murmuring wordlessly to him to try and calm him as he ran his hands over his shoulders soothingly. He felt Dorian’s hands clinging to his coat, as if to anchor him to him, and he fought back a sigh; with only a little awkwardness, he managed to scoop him up into his arms and carry him back to the bed. He was lighter without his leathers and armour and fancy boots, and he gritted his teeth at the fingers that curled into the fur beneath his chin and the breath that curled against his throat. Dorian was shaking violently, shivering as if he had a fever, and Cullen told himself that it was nothing of his doing, that Dorian was simply still out of sorts from the blow to his head, and that putting him back to bed was the best course of action for him. 

He settled him back against the pillows, very firmly prying his hands away when he tried to keep grabbing at him. “Get some rest, Dorian,” he said bluntly, as devoid of emotion as he could. “Barris will be here shortly.”

There was no way of knowing what might happen to Cullen when he was gone. Panic bubbled up in his stomach and chest, and all Dorian could think as the darkness took him again was that he was fated to be what killed Cullen Rutherford, over and over again.


	5. Chapter 5

Dorian had a headache.

He groaned and tried to pull the blankets up to cover his face, wondering how much he’d drunk the night before to feel like this. _Maker_ , he thought he’d gotten better at not succumbing to the wild drinking games the Chargers liked to come up with, but this-

Someone cleared their throat beside him and he blinked, dragged out of his befuddlement; his stomach lurched as he tried to make out the time from the slant of the light through the window, unable to tell if he’d been asleep for mere moments or hours, or even decades, and instead was greeted with the face (the very _concerned_ face, actually) of Ser Delrin Barris.

_Not_ Cullen. 

The memories came flooding back all at once, and Dorian groaned, half in dismay and half in frustration; he didn’t have the strength to shout, to demand to know where Cullen had gone or what had become of him.

“Lord Pavus?”

He turned his face into the pillow; he didn’t want to look at him or talk to him or have him feel pity for him. Poor, delusional Dorian, ranting about time magic, of all things! Best sic a guard on him, lest he hurt himself in his confusion!

When he didn’t answer, Barris cleared his throat again, this time the sound a little more awkward. “The Commander asked me to watch over you,” Barris said gently, almost hesitantly. Everything the man _did_ was gentle, Maker bloody well take him. Didn’t he know that he was a templar, and Dorian was a mage, an untrustworthy one at that?

“Not for my protection, I’m sure,” Dorian said hollowly, his face squashed into the pillow. He laughed weakly, and the sound was devoid of all humor. “He wants to make sure I stay put, hmmm? Am I to be guarded like one of your little pets in your fucking Circles?”

Barris didn’t flinch. “I was only given orders to keep you safe, Lord Pavus. The Commander said nothing more.”

Dorian remembered Cullen’s face as he had stood and turned from him. Distrust, disappointment and betrayal had been written there, very plainly. To him, it was obviously not anything to do with protecting him or keeping him safe, and everything to do with keeping a threat under lock and key. 

He closed his eyes, misery nearly swamping him. 

The _Commander_ hadn’t needed to say anything more about how he felt about the situation.

Barris shifted in the chair, the wooden legs scraping on the stone floor; Dorian cracked open an eye to see him sitting closer than a moment ago, his expression still soft but his eyes alert. “Commander Cullen says you had some interesting stories to tell,” he said carefully. “I’d be delighted to hear them, if you’re so inclined.”

Dorian couldn’t help himself, he rolled his eyes; how foolish did this damned boy think he was?

Cullen had called him a liar to his face, had accused him of keeping secrets and not valuing the friendship that they had found together, and now Barris expected him to repeat himself for his amusement?

_No,_ Dorian thought. _That isn’t what he wants. He wants to make sure your story is still the same. He wants to make sure your lies haven’t twisted around themselves._

He lifted his head, rolling awkwardly onto his side to stare at him. Maybe his gaze would unsettle him and he’d damn well leave him alone. “And will you be as _trusting_ as the Commander?” Dorian asked bluntly. “Can I expect the same level of _unflappable_ support and loyalty from you, Ser Barris?”

“You have the trust of both the Lady Inquisitor, and the Commander himself, Lord Pavus,” he said instantly, without hesitation, “and that is by far the most sterling recommendation of character one could ever ask for. I believe our own acquaintance is not extensive enough for my opinion to be considered relevant, but I trust the Commander’s choice implicitly.”

He smiled gently, trying to catch Dorian’s gaze with his own. His eyes were far too clever for Dorian’s peace of mind. “He says you believe yourself to have travelled through time by some magical means- a fascinating concept, I must say. You must be very proud to be capable of such magics.”

Dorian snorted humourlessly; pride had nothing to do with it, at this point. Of _course_ he was proud of the magic that he had mastered and the magic that it had taken he and Alexius years of tireless work to make possible; but he hadn’t bent the entirety of the world around himself as some kind of simple parlor trick to impress simple men. Barris was a good man, as stalwart and decent as Cullen was, in fact, but like Cullen, he had a very limited idea of the complexities and potential of magic.

Magic, to men like Barris and Cullen, was nothing more than energy; it could be directed, diverted, even cancelled out by one of their impressive little templar skills. But it was so much more than simple _energy_ ; it was a force, it was as integral and essential a part of a mage as their breath and their blood. And it was capable of amazing, astounding, awesome things that they had no idea of, no way of even understanding the soaring heights and plummeting depths of _potential_ that magic provided.

Time magic was only one of the multitude of ways that magic could be utilized and shaped and molded into something new.

But Barris wanted _facts_ ; he wanted details, he wanted what was easily explained and solidly logical, as any good templar would.

And as far as any templar was concerned, what Dorian had to say on the matter sat soundly outside the boundaries of _logical_. He was tired of explaining himself to men who found him untrustworthy just by virtue of his magical talents.

“ _Proud_ ,” Dorian laughed, making sure to twist the word and make it just ever slightly mocking. “What a silly thing for you to say, Ser Barris, am I not the most humble creature you’ve ever laid eyes upon?”

“I... that is not for me to say, Lord Pavus.”

Dorian snorted again. “So delightfully _diplomatic_ , Ser Barris, I’m beginning to think you might not be a templar at all!” When Barris didn’t answer, he sighed. “In answer to your question, I’ve never had much care for pride, not in the fashion that you seem to be implying- some lustful, slavering, arrogant sense of self obsession and greed. Pride like that makes men dangerous- pride is what ruined my homeland. No, I’ve never really fancied pride. What I _do_ fancy is knowledge, the betterment of one’s self and the pursuit of higher goals, and... yes, I am impressed with myself on such an account. Damned impressed, actually. It was rather difficult, I’ll have you know.”

“It sounds like it,” Barris said genuinely, with far more enthusiasm than Cullen had offered. Whether he actually believed him or not remained to be seen. “Tell me, how does one accomplish such a feat? It seems quite complex- are we in danger of being overrun by a dozen handsome Tevinters all attempting to reshape the world as they see fit?”

Maker, the damn fool wasn’t subtle.

Normally, such a man as Delrin Barris calling him handsome would have sent butterflies through his stomach and made him break out in a sunny smile, but Dorian was too focused on the question itself to be flattered.

His brow furrowed. A second passed, and then another, and another. Silence stretched between them, and he could feel the gears of his mind turning and turning and turning and-

“How in Andraste’s name would I know something like _that_?” Dorian blustered, because the question had truly stumped him and he was mortified at not having considered the ramifications of it before now. Staying long enough to risk running into his past self had never been a part of his plan. “Do I look like a blighted expert on how many Dorian’s there might be traipsing about the time line? I hope that if there is another me out there he’s being oiled by The Iron Bull and diddled, at the very least. One of us should be having a good time.”

The flush to Barris’ cheeks was not quite so obvious against his dark complexion as it was when he made Cullen blush, but the way his eyes widened and darted to the side was still the same. 

“I- hmm. I would- one can only hope,” he said stiltedly, stammering over the words. He seemed to realise after a moment that he had just offered encouragement that Dorian might be enjoying sexual satisfaction in another version of Thedas, and the look of embarrassed horror in his eyes was almost amusing. “That is, I- this is rather beyond my limited understanding of theoretical magic.”

Watching him flush and listening to the stammer in his voice was the most amusement Dorian had had in _days_ , and he rather enjoyed Barris’ scandalized look.

“You templars and your need to overcomplicate things with logic,” Dorian said, with a dramatic sigh. “It’s very straightforward- well, as straightforward as magic _can_ be, which is to say, not that straightforward at all, and not at all logical because the premise exists upon undoing any laws of the physical universe that we understand to be true.”

There was a vaguely panicked look in Barris’ eyes, as if he’d only just realised that he’d inadvertently signed himself up for a lecture on theoretical sciences.

“The error in our thinking is the assumption that all time exists in a straight and constant line, which is a foolish assumption because time is not a constant that you can apply physical terms of measurement-”

“I’m sure I trust the theoretical basis of your work, Lord Pavus,” Barris said, his voice faintly strained. 

Dorian harrumphed under his breath; perhaps he’d gotten a tad carried away at the thought of having a passive audience, but damn it all, he’d _asked_ , hadn’t he? “Ignorance is the basis for a great deal of fear, Ser Barris,” he said pointedly, feeling slightly chastised. “Fine then. I anchored myself to this day because I lost-"

He slammed to a halt, considering his words carefully.

“The _Inquisition_ lost a valuable member and I wanted to set things right,” he finished, suddenly withdrawn and reticent even as his face flushed. He replayed what he had seen when Cullen had died, over and over in his mind, and he reminded himself that whatever the cost, it had been worth it.

Cullen was alive.

Let the damned tit be ungrateful.

__________________________

Cullen knew he was being ungrateful, but Maker take it all if his patience hadn’t been worn ragged today without the inanities of command getting under his feet- and that was _before_ he factored in the headache that had never quite settled all day. He’d grown quite adept at simply tolerating the lower grade pain he dealt with on a day to day basis, gritting his teeth and soldiering on, and today was no different. There was too much to be done, too much at stake, for him to stop and fuss about a simple headache. 

Things like a mysteriously appearing and frustratingly tight-lipped Tevinter mage just had to be taken in his stride- of all the daft and bewildering things he’d expected the day to hold for him, Dorian’s bizarre performance was so far from the realms of possibility that he was still wondering if perhaps this was just some elaborate nightmare, the puppetry of a bored demon. No matter how many times he’d pinched the skin of his forearm, testing to see if it shocked him from slumber, the thought of _maybe_ still haunted him.

_Maybe_ this was all a terrible dream.

_Maybe_ Dorian had deceived them all for weeks and would rapidly unleash the Venatori upon them.

_Maybe_ Dorian thought he was telling the truth. 

_Maybe_ Dorian _was_ telling the truth.

He scowled and shook his head, and turned back to where Leliana and Josephine stood huddled by Josephine'’s desk, their heads bowed together as they inspected some new missive that had been rushed downstairs from the rookery. “Any word from the Inquisitor?” he asked, scowling further when he heard how very petulant his own voice sounded aloud.

They glanced up at him in unison. “Nothing so far,” Josephine said, tapping her pen to the clipboard in her arms. “There is a storm along the coast that is making it difficult for scouts to get through.”

“Surprisingly,” Leliana said wryly. “A storm on the Storm Coast.”

Josephine very pointedly ignored her sarcasm. “Ah, if I may Commander, how did your discussion go with Dorian?” The concern in her eyes was so genuine that for a moment Cullen felt a pang of guilt at the sullen direction of his thoughts. “Did he tell you of how he arrived here without being seen?”

“And how he came to be the bearer of a very serious head wound,” Leliana added pointedly. “I spoke to Madame de Fer about her initial assessment of the injury, and I’d be curious to see if Dorian’s story confirms her suspicions. I assume he was coherent enough to provide some kind of answer, yes?”

Their ability to jest at a time like this would normally set his nerves at ease, but if anything it only seemed to grate on him more: did they not realise everything that was at stake here, the vulnerabilities that Dorian’s abrupt appearance had exposed? Did they not take it seriously?

And here he had hoped that a message might have reached the Inquisitor’s team by now, and they could clear up once and for all what had happened to Dorian and whether his wild tales held any water. 

Speaking of... “He had nothing of substance to tell me,” he said brusquely, drumming his fingers on his wrist guards to dispel some of the nervous energy in him. “A wild tale, barely worth repeating, and certainly nothing I’d put my faith in.” He tried not to think of the look of betrayal and hopeless grief on Dorian’s face when he’d rebuked him. 

Leliana was watching him carefully, as if she suspected he was not entirely telling the whole of it, and Josephine merely looked distressed at the news. 

Cullen shook himself. “So no, nothing of merit. I’ll attempt a more coherent discussion once he’s healed and lucid again. Probably in the morning, when he’s had a chance to rest.” 

Leliana sighed, loudly and enough to draw his gaze back to her. “A _pity_ ,” she said, with just enough of an emphasis on the words that he knew that she knew he was withholding things. 

Josephine, for her part, had apparently missed the subtle exchange, frowning off into the distance as she tapped the end of her dip pen against her chin. “But this is so _unlike_ Dorian,” she said, clearly still dismayed. “He has never at any point given us cause to doubt him- if there was some trouble after him, if he were in danger, he would but have to ask and we would aid him, surely he _knows_ that?”

_You died._

He shook himself, shaking away the ghost of Dorian’s voice. “It is more important at this point to contain the damage this little incident might have caused,” he said pointedly. “We can’t have it getting out that the Inquisition is vulnerable in the walls of their own sanctuary.” 

She waved a hand distractedly. “I have already issued a statement and spoken to all of our visiting dignitaries about the incident. For the moment, without a coherent testimonial from Dorian himself, I have done the best that I can.”

Leliana reached over and put her hand on her shoulder, her expression softening. “We are immensely grateful for the work you do, Josie,” she said gently. “Maker only knows what troubles we would find ourselves in if we allowed our dear Commander to handle our diplomatic ventures.”

Cullen bristled as Josephine giggled. “I’ll have you know that while I was in Kirkwall-”

“ _I was the only liaison the Chantry had with the city’s noble families for two years,_ ” Leliana and Josephine finished together, rolling their eyes and giggling at the way Cullen’s jaw snapped shut and his cheeks heated in embarrassment. 

“I don’t say it _that_ often.” 

“Oh, no, I’ve _never_ heard it before today,” Josephine said with exaggerated innocence, giggling further when Leliana winked at her. 

Cullen scowled and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, palm digging in at the junction of his shoulders to put pressure on the ache there. “All right, you’ve made your point.” But a niggling thought gathered at the back of his mind and wouldn’t settle. “On another note, I don’t suppose there were any unusual problems with the Keep today- broken stairs or tiles or... masonry?”

Leliana frowned, thinking. “No, my scouts didn’t find anything in their initial sweep of the per-”

“There was, actually!” Josephine interrupted. “A section of the bridge leading from the rotunda to your office collapsed, a few stones, nothing more. Thank the _Maker_ that no one was injured. A few people were a bit shaken up, but I’ve already had the area closed off and started discussing repairs.”

_The masonry fell, and crushed you as you walked beneath it._

He couldn’t hold back the flinch as Dorian’s words rang loud in the back of his head, and he feigned a cough to cover the moment from Josephine’s inquisitive gaze. After clearing his throat, he asked “Any indication it was sabotage?”

It was the most logical explanation, of course- all Dorian needed to do to prove his story was a few broken stones and crumbling mortar, and here he had it. It pained him to think that Dorian would stoop so low as to vandalize the Keep just to validate his own story, but what was the alternative? That he somehow _magically_ warped time and the physical laws of the world simply to rescue him? 

There had to be something bigger afoot, something that he couldn’t see.

“ _Sabotage?_ ” Josephine asked. “ _Maldicion_ , who would _do_ such a thing?”

Leliana stepped in close to him, meeting Cullen’s eyes and not affording him the luxury of looking away. “If you believe someone has betrayed us, you should tell us, Commander.”

He hesitated.

She persisted. “If you have reason to believe that _Dorian_ has betrayed us, Commander...”

He couldn’t say it. Maker take him, but he couldn’t say it. The words were right there on his tongue, pushing insistently- logically- against his lips, but he couldn’t say it.

_Sentimental fool that I am, I resolved to come back and save you._

Maker, why would Dorian concoct such an elaborate lie? If he even presumed for a _moment_ that Dorian’s wild story was true, then what would the repercussions be? He’d torn open time itself, when the balance between the world and the Fade was already so very fragile and volatile to begin with, and all simply to save his life?

Who was he to Dorian that he would endanger the world and everything they were fighting for to save him?

“I... I’ve no evidence of sabotage- I just find the timing peculiar, what with Dorian’s mysterious appearance.” He swallowed down the sour taste in his mouth. “I was hoping more for something along the lines of- of a hole in the walls. Or a tunnel into the undercroft. Evidence of... of an intrusion, yes? But this, the bridge... I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Josephine visibly relaxed, leaning back against her desk and setting her note board down gently beside her. Leliana, meanwhile, continued to eye him suspiciously, but she didn’t press him for further information. “I will have my people look into this, nonetheless,” she said. “I do not want to ignore it if it turns out we might have a traitor among us.”

“In the meantime, you should return to Dorian soon, don’t you think?” Josephine asked. “Forgive me, but... it seems that you are the one that he wished to speak with. I doubt he will open up much to Ser Barris.”

Cullen threw his hands into the air in frustration. “What, am I to be the man’s keeper now? Should I send Corypheus a politely worded missive asking him to hold off on any immediate attacks against us, because I have to babysit a skittish mage and don’t have time to see to the needs of our armed forces?”

Josephine looked taken aback by his outburst. “... Ah. My apologies, Cullen,” she said awkwardly. “Of course not, I did not mean to imply... I didn’t know that you had so many duties today.”

“It’s alright, Josie,” Leliana said pointedly, staring at Cullen with a warning look. “It would be foolish of the Commander to assume you’ve memorised his workload as well as your own.”

Cullen knew a dressing down when he heard one, and he gritted his teeth and nodded stiffly towards Josephine. “My apologies, Josephine. I let my temper speak for me.”

She offered him a weak smile. “It has been one of those days, no?”

“If your duties are so _desperately_ unmanageable, Cullen, I could have one of my people sit with him,” Leliana offered, her expression still wary. “But if you believe that your people might be able to glean some useful information from him, I will trust your judgment.”

Cullen bit the inside of his cheek and fought back a scowl. “I would not recommend your people for this duty, Leliana,” he said, trying not to sound petulant. “I will organise a rotational cover with a few of the templars I know I can trust to keep their head. Dorian is a powerful mage, and whatever he’s gotten himself tangled in, we need people on hand who can handle whatever eventuality should arise.”

He swallowed, and hesitated. “And... more than that, I do not want Dorian to fall victim to any sort of conservative hysteria. There is still a strong anti-magic sentiment amongst the ranks, especially amongst the templars- the guard is as much for his protection as it is for the rest of us.”

Josephine blinked, obviously surprised at the concept that the guard had ever been to protect _them_ at all. “Why would we need protecting from him?” she asked, clearly bemused. “Dorian has been a valuable and faithful ally. Do _you_ believe that he is dangerous, Cullen?”

Maker, he was getting dizzy from talking in circles- was Josephine being deliberately obtuse? “I have nothing to go on other than the facts that lay before us, and the gibberish he has told me,” he snapped, his face hot. “It is my duty as military advisor to ensure the safety and security of this fortress and the people within, and I will not sit idle simply because a friend is implicated.”

He couldn’t stand the way they stared at him, the shock in Josephine’s eyes and the disdain in Leliana’s face. “If that will be all, ladies, I have a lot of work to catch up on today, and I have to organise a guard for the infirmary.” 

Saying that, he turned and stalked down the corridor towards the great hall, trying to pretend he couldn’t feel the way their eyes burned into the back of his neck. 

What was he supposed to _do_ , exactly? Was he supposed to just take Dorian at his fantastical, ridiculous word, accept his ludicrous story without any proof or facts? If Dorian was indeed capable of time magic, why waste it on something as inconsequential as preventing _his_ death?

Not that the thought of his own death filled him with a great deal of comfort; he could feel his skin crawling as he recalled the way Dorian had described it, sparse on the details true, but the horror in his eyes was not something he could have faked. Why not warn them earlier about the attack on Haven, or even the attack on the Conclave? 

Maker, he was actually contemplating believing him, damn it all; regardless of how little sense it made, regardless of how suspicious it all was, this was _Dorian_ , and if you'd asked him yesterday he would have said he trusted Dorian implicitly. 

He would actually have confessed that there was no one he trusted more immediately, apart perhaps from Cassandra. In a moment of peril, he would have trusted Dorian at his back without question. 

And now, the moment that faith in him was tested, he backed away? What manner of fine-weather friend did that make him? 

_Honestly_ , though, time magic?

Solas barely even glanced at him as he crossed through the rotunda, and Cullen was so deep in thought that he didn’t even notice the rope blocking off access to the outer door until he walked into it.

The soft chuckle from behind him only made the hot flush to his cheeks burn all the more fiercely. “The bridge is _closed_ , Commander,” Solas called from where he stood working on his newest mural.

“I’m aware of that,” he said stiltedly, turning awkwardly on his heel and stalking back towards the main hall to take the long way back to his tower. 

The long way which would take him dangerously close to the infirmary, and definitely within view of the windows. 

Honestly, _time_ magic?


	6. Chapter 6

Dorian slept, because it was easier to sleep than to deal with more accusing looks and more mocking questions. His head ached, the lingering reminder that he probably had a concussion from dramatically hurling himself backwards onto his bedroom floor, and he felt hollow and drained.

Everything was so distant.

Cullen was safe. 

It was easier to sleep with that in mind.

He was vaguely aware of voices every now and then, speaking low and soft to one another, and he thought he heard his name more than once, spoken with the sort of emphasis that made him think they were trying to rouse him. Once, he thought he saw Cullen, standing tall and silent at his bedside, and he reached out for him with shaking hands. But he vanished like smoke, and Dorian was too weak and too tired to call out his name.

_Why should you care?_ the petty, petulant voice whispered. _He doesn’t trust you. He thinks you’re dangerous. He thinks you’re mad._

But he did care. He cared so much that it made his chest ache with the strength of it. Cullen was his _friend_ , one of the precious few he had, even if he was being extremely unreasonable and a bit of a tit right now. 

He’d saved him, the danger had passed them by and Cullen was safe; now he didn’t have to question why his loss roused the same panicked grief in him that Felix’s death had. He didn’t have to examine too closely the sharp edges of the pain, or why Cullen’s adamant rejection hurt so deeply. 

He was safe. That was all that mattered as he drifted back off to sleep.

When he woke up a second time, sluggish and aching, a new templar was stationed beside him. An unfriendly woman who fetched him water when he rasped that he was thirsty, and who met his grateful smile with her thin lips set in a grim line. The physician came back in and held a glowstone up to his eyes, keeping his chin pinched between cold fingers when he grumbled and tried to turn away. 

“If you’ve bleeding on the brain, we may have to bleed you to relieve the pressure,” she said firmly, with the same tone that one might use to scold a misbehaving five year old. His eyes watered as she waved the light in front of them, but apparently whatever she saw satisfied her and she left him be without the threatened leeches or tourniquets. 

He fell asleep again with thoughts of Cullen being snatched away from him, over and over again. Just when he reached him, just when his fingers brushed the edge of his coat or he felt the warmth of his skin beneath his hand, he would disappear, more smoke drifting through his fingers as his frustration was swallowed by sleep.

And then...

It was the warmth on his face that roused him, gentle and annoyingly bright. _Sunshine_ , his brain helpfully supplied, and as it slowly dragged him from the depths of sleep towards waking, he found a grumble rising in his chest at the inconvenience. True, it was deliciously warm, but he was _tired_ \- what sort of medical service were they providing here, if they left their patients at the mercy of the morning sun? 

Still fuzzy from sleep, he went to roll over- and found that he was not lying down in a bed in the infirmary. In fact, he was not lying down _at all_.

His eyes snapped open and his heart stopped for an agonisingly painful moment as he found himself standing in the middle of his room, morning sunshine spilling in through the window and slanting warmly across his face. There was a surging lurch within him as he lost his balance, staggering wildly with his arms flailing as he sought to find his equilibrium again. 

Panting, his heart racing with panic, he clung to the post at the corner of his bed and waited for his room to stop spinning around him. 

“What-” He rubbed fiercely at his eyes, pushing his hair back in horrified dismay. “ _Kaffas_ , what is going _on?_ ”

He felt weak, impossibly drained, even more so than last night. Surely after a full night’s rest he should have been more himself again, if not back to full strength. But he felt _exhausted_ , like he hadn’t slept for days, run down in a way he hadn’t felt since his panicked marathon through the Frostbacks to warn the Inquisition of the approach of the Venatori.

It was slightly too much work trying to keep his feet under him while the blasted room refused to settle, so he slid clumsily to the floor, resting his head against the bedframe. Was he sick? Was this the blasted machinations of some demon, trying to keep him befuddled and confused while it leeched his energy to feast upon? 

It felt... he froze, eyes widening in horrified realisation as a niggling possibility began to flare to life in his mind. He felt drained of _magic_ , like he’d pushed his body to the absolute physical limits and in a bid to keep him alive, his body had begun to strip itself of anything that could plausibly be converted to energy. 

But that could only mean-

He whimpered and clutched at his face in horror, his head spinning wildly. He wasn’t _feeling_ drained, he was in the process of _being_ drained- the spell was still open at the other end, the portal to this point in time yawning wide for anyone to find it, unattended and unguarded. Without a foci, without something to anchor the spell, or a group of mages to spread the burden amongst them, the spell was feeding itself off of _him_. 

He stared at the open air before his desk- the place where there _should_ have been a corresponding portal, the connection to _this_ moment in time, where he had first stepped through to save Cullen, and where instead there was nothing. Not a flicker of magic, not a ripple in the warp and the weft of the Veil. 

His heart was racing, and he could feel a panic attack creeping up through his veins, thin and hot like acid searing at him. With a shuddering gulp of air that was definitely _not_ a sob of some kind, he went to climb to his feet- and promptly fell over. A snarl of frustration pushed past his lips, disgusted at himself for making such an appalling mistake with his spellwork, and with a great deal of effort he managed to perform an awkward crawl across the floor to his desk, fumbling around in the top drawer for his scant personal supply of lyrium tonics. The clink of the glass vials as the rolled around, determined to escape his reach, was abruptly the most annoying noise he had ever heard in his entire life- and that included the time he’d been trapped by Great Aunt Lysana at a festival masquerade, forced to feign interest as she bemoaned loudly his bachelorhood and tried to convince him (loudly and drunkenly) to ‘ _spread his seed about freely, for the good of the Imperium_ ’. While no doubt she’d been trying to win his affection ahead of his parents, encouraging him to whore about to his heart’s content, he sincerely doubted she’d meant for him to spend his evenings the way he preferred, and was more intending for her granddaughter to be the lucky recipient of his _generously shared seed_.

The memory alone was enough to make him shudder in disgust, even as his fingers closed over a vial that rolled awkwardly enough to let him know there was liquid in it. He tugged off the stopper, ignoring the way his hands shook, and tipped his head back to swallow the entirety of it in one gulp. 

He gasped as it sizzled through him, the lyrium immediately sparking to life in his weakened flesh; he gritted his teeth, a groan trying to push free. It bubbled and seethed, like a limb gone to sleep, but it ebbed and surged through every inch of him. Vaguely more level-headed as it settled, he climbed to his knees and fished through the drawer for another, and then another. By the time the third dose was sliding down his throat, he was on his feet, buzzing with energy and his brain turning over ideas almost faster than he could concentrate on them. 

The first portal was still open- but this one was _not_. He had not done anything differently in his casting after the first miserable attempt, when Cullen had stormed away from him and been summarily crushed by the collapsing bridge. So the mistake, whatever had caused the portal to collapse, had happened afterwards.

His hands were still shaking when he tried to pick up a nib pen to scrawl down his racing thoughts, but that was probably more to do with the adrenalin seething through him from taking such a massive dose of lyrium than with his exhaustion. Probably, anyway. More than likely. 

Maybe. 

The first time he’d lost his concentration, it’d been witnessing Cullen’s death that had done it; the lapse in his focus had been enough for the fragile nature of the spell to shatter and drag him backwards, rebounding so ferociously it was as if he’d had a rubber rope tied around his waist. The second time... he frowned, trying to muddle through it. The second time, he’d collapsed before he could make it to Cullen, and-

His eyes widened. “Fasta vess,” he whispered.

Cullen had avoided the accident, and the world had changed. The day in which Dorian cast about in desperation for time magic to save Cullen no longer existed according to this current chain of events. In keeping Cullen alive, he had irrevocably shifted the world, and the portal on this end had lost the connection- because the time and place it was reaching for in the future was technically no longer there. 

He’d shifted the world for Cullen, and now the fragile connection between tomorrow night and now (or... was that today and yesterday morning? _Maker_ , what a nightmare) was broken. The original portal still existed somewhere in the potential of the universe, but he couldn’t reach it. His body was the only thing fuelling it, and when he’d run out of energy it had clearly tried to rebound, to collapse and drag him back again.

Except there was no portal on this side, so it was like charging into a brick wall at a full sprint. Maker, he had to undo this, he had to figure out how to reset it before it killed him, because if it had stayed open once before, then-

_Cullen._

It had stayed open because Cullen had died. 

“ _Kaffas_ ,” he swore again, his stomach lurching up into his throat as he looked at the light streaming through his windows. 

His heart was beating far too fast, and he didn’t have time to stop and coddle himself as he moved for the door. Dizziness threatened to send him to his knees, and Maker knew he couldn’t afford another display like the one he’d put on earlier, swooning onto the feet of a terrified Chantry sister; if he was, in fact, still caught in the day that Cullen-

_Maker, Cullen._

All thoughts of how he had come to be here and why the spell had failed in bringing him back through the rift to the time he’d left were secondary. Struggling not to draw much attention to himself, Dorian kept his head bowed as he hurried towards the bridge that Cullen would soon be crossing beneath, praying that he wasn’t already too late.

_You never learn,_ the cruel little voice whispered. _You will ruin yourself trying to save him. He doesn’t trust you._

That didn’t matter.

What mattered was saving Cullen.

________________________

There was a startled yell across the yard, followed half a second later by a clattering crash; they both jumped in alarm, more out of instinct than out of any real threat, and Cullen was scowling by the time he turned around and spotted the source of the disturbance- a pair of recruits trying to manhandle a crate of weapons down the stairs only to have dropped it on their toes.

He glared at them and they noticeably wilted under his gaze, cringing despite the weight of the box still resting on their feet. “Is there a problem, soldiers?” he asked sharply, his voice whipping out at them and making them flinch. “Are we perhaps disinterested in maintaining safety standards?”

“Sir, no sir!”

“Do you perhaps not recall the safety notice issued by Ambassador Montilyet just a few days ago?”

“Sir, we-” They exchanged miserable looks. “We’ll do better, sir.”

“Perhaps you’d do better to carry those items up individually, rather than risk letting a heavy crate escape and crush an innocent on the stairs.”

The dismay on their faces would probably have been comical at any other time, but right now his head hurt and he was too irritable to find their incompetence amusing. After a moment, their meek “yes, sir” reached his ears, and they let the crate bump down to the flat of the courtyard, one of them standing guard over it while the other trudged off to fetch a crowbar from the blacksmith.

He scrubbed wearily at his face, feeling the ache crawling up his neck to the base of his skull. He had so much to do, and not enough hours in the day to do it, and there was something fussing at the back of his mind that wanted his attention. He couldn’t focus on it, couldn’t work out what it was except for a vague sense of unease, and it frustrated him all the more. The last thing he needed was another day lost to anxiety attacks and an evening lost to nightmares, but he could feel it building in him.

It made him want to glance over his shoulder, as if he was half expecting someone to be standing behind him; which was a foolish paranoia, there was always someone behind him, always someone wanting his attention. The Keep was busy and he was busier, and he very rarely had time to himself.

He found himself clenching his fists at his sides, shaking his head to dispel the funk that had settled there. Maker, what was _wrong_ with him this morning? He was irritable and jumpy, and he had the intense feeling that he was supposed to _know_ something...

But what?

There was something he wanted to remember, but every time he tried to concentrate on it, it slipped out of his grasp. 

He had no idea how long he stood there lost in his thoughts, but eventually he shook himself and marched off across the yard, towards the stairs that led to his tower.

________________________

By the time Dorian made it outside, Cullen was standing near the bridge. It had been a terrible game of dodge trying to weave in and out of the morning crowds without drawing attention, all while trying to walk faster and faster. He’d heard his name more than once, spoken in soft confusion, as if they weren’t quite calling out to him but weren’t quite sure of what they were seeing. Varric, thank the Maker, had been engaged in conversation, his face turned away from the garden door, and Dorian didn’t have to worry about trying to shake the damned inquisitive dwarf off his tail. 

He stumbled through the small crowd cluttering up the vaulted doors to the great hall, his hands going to the railing for balance as he scoured the yard for a sign of Cullen. The bridge was still intact, so it hadn’t happened yet, so Cullen had to-

_There._

He was standing in the lower courtyard, alone and apparently lost in thought. There was a look of stark confusion on his face, as though he was utterly perplexed as to how he’d come to be there, and was racking his brains trying to puzzle it out. The surge of hope that Dorian felt at seeing him in one piece was swiftly destroyed as Cullen shook himself sternly and turned, walking across the yard and towards the crumbling bit of bridge.

“ _No!_ ” Not stopping to let himself think- because it had _obviously_ not backfired at _all_ when he charged ahead thoughtlessly before-, Dorian shouted Cullen’s name and vaulted the railing, ignoring the cries of alarm behind him as the Fade step sent him hurtling down the sharp drop and across the courtyard. 

He registered the sound of crumbling stone an instant before tackling Cullen to the ground. 

Cullen heard the panicked shout behind him, and he just had enough time for his brain to blearily register _Dorian?_ before he was hurtling backwards, something crashing into his waist with a painful crunch and sending him flying through the air. The ground surged up to meet him and he went skidding over the grass, the impact pushing the air from his lungs as something landed heavily atop him. 

For a moment, he could only lie dazed and winded, the air hissing shallowly from between his lips as he waited for his body to remember how to breathe; when his muscles finally shuddered back into life, he sucked in a painful breath of the sharp morning air and groaned, reaching up to shove off a clod of dirt that had come to rest on his forehead. 

“What...” he mumbled, struggling to sit up. The weight was still heavy across his legs, and he fumbled around until he could see- “Dorian?”

Dorian lay sprawled over his legs, eyes wide and lips parted as he panted. “Dorian, what in the name of the Maker are you...” His pupils were blown wide, unfocused even though he was staring at him, and he was shaking, almost violently so, and Cullen tore his gaze away from his face for a moment- and paled in horror.

There was a huge slab of stone pinning Dorian’s legs to the ground, easily as wide across as Cullen’s thigh and almost as long; he could just see the beginnings of blood starting to ooze from beneath the slab. Dorian wasn’t screaming or crying out in pain, but he was so wretchedly pale that it was a wonder he hadn’t passed out immediately; he was shaking, his breath coming in awkward hiccuping gulps as if he couldn’t quite get the hang of breathing. 

“Maker, Dorian!” The original panicked shout had drawn the attention of others, and as Cullen tried to wriggle out from underneath him, several soldiers came sprinting across the yard to aid them, and a few of the stable-hands too. A crowd quickly gathered around them, and Cullen was incensed that they would come to gape at Dorian’s pain. “Don’t move, it’s alright, _Maker_ , it’s going to be alright Dorian, can you still understand me? You don’t have to answer, can you nod for me?”

He let his head rest in his lap, his thighs supporting his torso, as the soldiers began the ominous task of lifting the stone off of his legs. “It’s going to be alright, stay calm. Just stay focused on me, okay?”

Dorian stared up at him with unseeing eyes, his lips parted as he panted desperately. Maker, he couldn’t even tell if anything was getting through to him, but what was the alternative? His hands were shaking as he cradled Dorian’s head, his fingers trying hopelessly to smooth back his tussled hair and brush away the powdery dust that had come raining down with the broken stones. Dorian wouldn’t like to have messy hair, he’d hate to be seen in public with messy hair, he had to make sure he fixed it so that Dorian didn’t have to worry.

He was aware of the shouting going on around him, as they tried to gather enough men to lift the largest stone clear without having to roll it and injure him further. He couldn’t really make out the words though, even if the intent made its way through the fog shrouding him. Dorian’s hand had come up to clutch at him, his fingers so tight around his wrist that his bones ached, but he didn’t care. “Everything is going to be alright, Dorian, I promise,” he said urgently, his voice low. “I’m right here, I’m right here with you. It’s going to be alright.”

He saw the moment when the shock faded, when the adrenaline eased enough for the pain to break through the fog. Dorian’s eyes abruptly focused, coherence coming back to that stormy grey gaze he knew so well, and the look of dazed misery morphed into one of agonized panic. His mouth fell open and a choking noise bubbled up, louder than the shallow hiccups he’d managed before now, and as he gasped and trembled, Cullen felt his heart break.

“ _Cullen_ ,” he stuttered, his breathing verging on hysterical; there were tears in his eyes. “Cullen, help- help me, _please_. I can’t- I can’t-”

He tried to move his head, obviously to twist around to see the damage for himself, but Cullen kept his hand firmly on his cheek, keeping him at rest across his legs. “Don’t look, don’t look Dorian, keep your eyes on me, okay?”

It took all of Cullen’s restraint not to allow panic to creep in. Dorian was only going to make things worse if he attempted to crawl out from beneath the rubble pinning his legs, and if Cullen didn’t soothe him he might cause himself irreparable harm.

“ _Cullen._ ”

“Shh, I’m here,” Cullen hushed, entwining his fingers with his and clinging tight, his other hand running soothing circles on his back. He tried not to hold his breath or tense up as several of his men began to lift the stone on his legs, as gently and carefully as they could- the last thing he needed was for his tension to upset Dorian further. “Shh, you’re alright. You’re fine. Just keep watching me, you’re doing so well.”

“ _Hurts,_ ” Dorian whispered, his voice breaking with hiccuping sobs. As the largest weight was lifted from him, he moaned long and loud, the volume of his voice rising to a near hysterical pitch as his body twitched and spasmed. The sound made Cullen hurt, and without even consciously thinking about it, the hand on Dorian’s back ran up to his neck, running his fingers up into his hair in a gentle combing motion.

His throat tightened as he saw the first glimpse of the damage down to Dorian’s lower legs, the deep dark spill of blood so thick and dark that it almost seemed black in the shadows where they lay. He swallowed firmly, fighting back his own dismay; he knew that if he wavered at all right now, if he let his panic crack through his thin veneer of control, that he would never be able to restrain himself _or_ keep Dorian calm and relaxed.

“You started a story the other week,” Cullen said to distract him, trying to think quickly. _Before you left for the Storm Coast,_ a small voice added. _Which is where you’re supposed to be right now. Maker, Rutherford, what does that matter?_ Dorian was hurt and more importantly he’d gotten hurt to save _him._ “You were telling me about a friend you had in Tevinter. She had someone covered in honey and feathers, didn’t she?”

At first, Cullen wasn’t sure his attempts to distract Dorian would work, but after a few agonising moments, Dorian let out a great heaving sob that sounded like it was trying to be a laugh. “Maevaris, yes.” He trailed off, and Cullen sat patiently. “She... she had the poor woman smeared with honey. Almost from head to toe.”

“What did she do to deserve something like that?” Cullen asked encouragingly, palms still running in slow, easing circles across Dorian's back. He tried not to wince when another stone was lifted away, so as not to give Dorian any warning to the coming flood of pain. 

“The- _ah!_ ” He cringed violently, pressing his face down into Cullen’s thigh as he hid a muffled howl of pain into the fabric of his cloak. 

“You can do it,” Cullen said, letting Dorian squeeze his hand as tightly as he needed. “What did she do to deserve it?”

By the time he rested his cheek on Cullen’s lap again, he looked clammy and grey. “The... the woman was a disaster,” Dorian said, stuttering over the words. “Apparently she started a rumour that Mae- that Mae was in the pocket of some wealthy man from Ferelden, of all places, because she fancied him.”

“Oh?”

“As if Mae would ever fancy a _Fereldan._ ”

“Hey,” Cullen warned. “Watch it.”

Panting weakly, Dorian actually managed a faint chuckle. “She’s a woman of discriminating taste,” he said, by no means an apology for the jab.

One of his men caught his eye and nodded to him, as the last of the rubble was lifted and removed. The healers swooped in soundlessly, two of them tending to his injuries as a third knelt down beside him and offered Dorian a sprig of elfroot to chew while Cullen smoothed his sweaty hair off of his forehead.

When he was finally able to be lifted and moved without terrible pain making him cry out or risking worsening the injury, Cullen took Dorian into his arms, quite adamant that he was the only one suitable for the task, and walked him towards the infirmary.

“No,” Dorian insisted, his voice vaguely slurred. “I’ve had my fill of that blighted place these last few days. Take me to my room.” He was wildly disheveled, still quite pale and splattered with blood, his forehead damp with sweat; but he still had the brightest, most magnificent eyes that Cullen had ever seen.

And they were currently looking at him rather woefully.

He could no more have refused him than he could have moved the moons in the sky. “Whatever you need,” Cullen agreed, turning before he reached the infirmary and heading for the stairs to the central keep.

Dorian slumped against him in exhaustion, trembling softly. “The last time I saw you, you weren’t so agreeable,” Dorian mumbled, his forehead clammy where it pressed against his throat. He held onto Cullen as he was carried, his fingers winding tight through the now bloodied furs draped over his shoulders. “I like you better when you’re pleased with me, Commander.”

Cullen couldn’t remember ever having been cross with him, especially not in recent weeks, but when he asked Dorian what he meant by the words, he found him drowsing against his chest, exhausted by pain and faded adrenaline.

_Maker._

Why did he feel like apologizing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Thedosian Time Travel \o/ where the science is made up and the facts don't matter. Defira read way too much about wormholes and didn't understand even half of it and started ranting about something to do with a record skipping in place. Then she started yelling about a fax machine trying to dial a wrong number over and over. Bioticbootyshaker nodded politely and got her to calm down. They both agreed there was a very good reason that neither of them went into the sciences. The point is, maybe Dorian and Cullen will kiss soon, and that's the sort of scientific result we all want to see, right?


End file.
